New Delhi, Sep 10 A lawyer resorted to heated arguments with a presiding judge of a Delhi court after he refused to advance the date of hearing on a bail plea on the ground of absence of police officers due to their deployment for the upcoming BRICS Summit.
The hearing witnessed a heated exchange between the two and the judge warned the lawyer of possible contempt proceedings over his conduct.
Additional Sessions Judge Sachin Mittal was hearing an interim 30-day bail plea filed by Prakash Paneru on the ground that his wife is in the last month of pregnancy.
The BRICS Business Forum and the 18th BRICS Leaders' Summit are scheduled to be held at Delhi's Bharat Mandapam on September 11-13.
The court on September 9 directed the investigating officer to file a reply and a status report and listed the matter for September 16.
When Paneru's lawyer, Lakshay Yadav, insisted that the matter be taken up the next day, the court said most police officials are not appearing before it because of their deployment for arrangements for the upcoming BRICS Summit.
It said a reasonable time was, therefore, given to the investigating officer to verify the facts and documents and file a reply on the merits of the allegations.
"If the applicant feels any emergency, he should have filed the present application well in time so as to afford a reasonable time to the State for filing reply/status report," the judge said.
The lawyer then submitted that the BRICS Summit could not be bigger than the humanitarian ground on which interim bail was being sought, according to the order.
The court said an earlier hearing was not possible as courts would remain closed from September 11 to September 13. The lawyer subsequently sought a transfer of the matter to another court, which was declined.
The judge later recorded that the lawyer's conduct during the first call was "discourteous and lacking in the decorum expected from a member of the bar".
"In the first call of the matter, the conduct of Mr Lakshay Yadav was discourteous and lacking in the decorum expected from a member of the bar. Such conduct, apart from causing a delay in proceedings, prima facie amounts to interference with the administration of justice and/or tend to lowering the authority of the court," the judge said.
The court did not immediately initiate action against the lawyer but warned him to behave properly, failing which it said it would consider making a reference to the high court for initiating contempt proceedings.
On the bail plea, the court noted that the medical documents showed that the expected date of delivery of Paneru's wife is October 12. It also noted that Paneru was earlier declared a proclaimed offender.
The court said it cannot mechanically grant bail "merely on humanitarian grounds", while ignoring other relevant factors.
